Growing Up Under the Shadows of Temples
by Verdot
Summary: Yuna, Rikku, and Spiran discussions on marriage and other things. M for themes, nothing actually explicit. Yuna/Rikku


It had never been in issue so much as an assumption. Lulu's growing belly had reminded her of obligation more as the days went by. Her love was a _dream_ and she had woken up, so there wasn't much to be said about that. And even if he had been real... no matter.

Yuna wasn't surprised to see them--suitors--some shy and offering chains of shells and some ambitious and offering her titles when she was the one with more honors. Marriage was a contract and an advancement to some. She didn't care for such things anymore, now that her skirt was getting a little threadbare and her staff stood as a marking post for one of Wakka's lanterns. It was funny considering that once she had imagined her joining day at the Temple, back when she was a little girl. Only certain people could actually get a joining in the temple. Seymour had made a point to go to one, made a point to dress her up like a flower and a bird. Ritual was a means of something else for him.

They were all nice boys and men, but she couldn't handle another one. Maybe that was it.

Innocence was something that Yuna didn't want anymore. It was like ignorance and blind faith--the kinds of things that had brought her only heartache. She believed in Spira because she believed in life. But Yuna wasn't a child anymore. She couldn't be.

"Whatcha doing out here, Yunie?"

Maybe it was because she was raised a Yevonite and a Summoner at that. Yevon ultimately worshipped death--fading and leaving and feeding--but part of the cycle was birth. Because of this there were places that someone could go for a child if they couldn't make one of their own, and places for those who couldn't feed their children to leave them. In some villages where diseases had struck, she'd even heard that some women were perpetual mothers for a variety of men.

It wasn't _imposed_, of course.

"I was thinking..."

Rikku was Al-Bhed. Yuna had never really thought much of it, considering her own parents, but she had seen how people were, what biases they could have, what strange and misguided things they could say or do just because someone had green eyes and blonde hair. If there hadn't been Yevon, would the Al-Bhed have as much variety in their features as any other Spiran? She'd seen sun darkened and moon pale, and amongst them just as many good as bad people. One of the things she loved most about Spira, one of the things that had made her want to save it even more than the gentle smile of a boy was the way that different islands, different shores, different _people_ were.

But maybe things would change, now that the Calm was eternal and she didn't have to call on the names of dead people to defend the living.

"Are you still moping?" Rikku sat down beside her then, because piers were better with two people sitting on them.

"Not really. I... can I ask a personal question?" Yuna knew she sounded too formal. This was _Rikku_, her cousin, the girl that had pulled her goggles off and declared that she would guard her the first time they'd met. The girl that knew how to make _him_ laugh and even occasionally got Sir Auron and Lulu to smirk in a certain way.

"No. Of course you can, silly."

"Have you ever..." she really wished Lulu had explained more than the pregnancy and mechanics part to her, "...you know, done _it?_" Yuna made a little gesture with her hands, because she wasn't sure she'd gotten the point across.

Rikku's eyes got comically wide and she started laughing.

"I'm serious! You're younger than me, I figured I could talk to you about it." She wasn't hurt, but she could feel a strange pinkness to her cheeks.

"I just can't believe _you_haven't. I mean, that one time, where I made a crack and Wakka almost came storming in on you and Tidus and Lulu and Auron gave him this LOOK and he sat down... I mean, you didn't do it then?"

"N-no!"

At least Rikku's laughter was never mean-spirited. She recalled a time before she came to Besaid and some boy pulled her hair. He laughed with his face scrunched up. When Rikku laughed, her face opened up.

"Ok, we need to get this fixed. I was fourteen when I did it and believe me, you want to make sure it doesn't suck your first time around."

_ooo_

Rikku tried to teach her how to be forward. How to look a boy in the eye and let him know what she wanted. Yuna went along with it, because Rikku seemed to be enjoying herself. She had a map too, and a plan for an airship to go "cruise for hot guys". She didn't have the heart to tell Rikku that she was done with boys, done with the dissappointment at finding out they weren't real. There was hope that she'd been wrong, but as the days wore on and the whispers around Besaid of what was happening in politics grew louder, the more Yuna thought she should move on. To something instead of someone, though.

Even still, she wanted to hear more of Rikku's stories.

"So he had his hand on my boob, right? Just like 'hi there I'm feeling you up now' and I didn't know what to do! We had just been talking and BAM! Groped!"

"What did you end up doing?"

"Unscrewed the cap on my lightning cell and got him good. Sure, I jumped too, but the look on his face was worth it."

Lulu used to sit and talk with her like this. Though she had always left out the parts about groping and all that. Judging by Rikku's stories, Lulu must have had similar experiences with Chappu. But Lulu, despite having her eyes opened, was still a Yevonite at heart. Like how Sir Auron couldn't believe in it, yet he kept himself laced up tight. _Love as thou wilt, but don't let anyone see it._

Maybe she had lost enough innocence to think back at some of the people she'd met and notice things in her memory. Like how Elma would sometimes touch Lucil on the arm, and how Lulu's eyes were always smiling when she scolded Wakka. That lingering feeling that maybe Auron knew a little more about her father than she cared to know. And Rikku, with that impish grin and those comments that weren't quite dirty, but with a little imagination they could get there.

"Do Al-Bhed approve of... just anyone with anyone? I mean, Yevon never said anything about it, as long as there was someone keeping the cycle going." Mostly true. When politics got involved, things always got diluted from their purest form. Maybe Yevonites had lots of secret lovers or something. Yuna had to wonder if they made marriages so political sometimes in order to encourage cheating and keep everyone from dying out.

"Of course. I mean, some people get icked out, it's natural I guess. Like Brother had this boy who had a crush on him and oh you should have seen his face!"

Rikku was going to launch into another story, complete with broad sweeping gestures of her hands. Now that Lulu was married, some of their bond had faded. It was the natural order of things; it was the way it was. She had let it pass once, because Yuna hadn't been bold enough. But there was something to be said for talkative cousins and ghost boyfriends. Eternity was one thing, but a person still had to take a chance, right?

It was strange that kissing her was only different than kissing Tidus because it lacked tears.

_ooo_

She had asked to borrow some of Rikku's clothes, because she didn't feel right in her tattered skirt anymore. The shorts were a bit tight, but strangely easy to move in. There was no denying it hadn't been strange, but it could have been a lot more awkward. Yuna knew it wasn't the same if it had been with a boy, but then...

"Why didn't you just ask Lulu? I mean, I thought you two were close."

They were sitting on the beach now, bare feet in the water until the tide went low. Yuna liked the setting sun on her legs.

"It's not the same anymore now that she's married. Now that she's done with Pilgrimages. I think she knew that it would be her last one, if we had defeated Sin or not."

It sat between them like a secret, the comfortable kind that people who know the depth of their feelings for each other share. Someday someone would take Rikku away, as possessive as that sounded in her head. They would still have something that sat between them, though less closely.

"Man, you Yevonites talk about marriage like it's the end." She was teasing, for Yuna couldn't stomach calling herself a Yevonite. None of them could.

"It's like obligation. It shouldn't be, but there was something about the temples that turned it from something that should be happy into something solemn."

Rikku laid back and looked up at the pinking clouds, and seemed to be chewing on something in her mind. "Maybe that's why your dad married Auntie."

Well, the older village ladies had always said she took after her father an awful lot.


End file.
